1. Field of Invention
This present invention relates to a computerized mapping and real-time communication software program, and more specifically, to integrating or coupling computerized mapping and real-time communication software for the purpose of transferring location-related information using a real-time communication system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Computerized mapping and real-time communication software are independently achieving widespread use today. Such mapping programs are commonly used to automate tasks of calculating routes, viewing location-specific geographical areas for their spatial content, such as addresses, roadways, rivers, etc., and for the purpose of being used with Global Positioning System (GPS) devices for various applications, such as a personal navigation application. Mapping software programs apply to a wide variety of uses, such as personal navigation, telematics, thematic mapping, resource planning, routing, fleet tracking, safety dispatching (i.e., Police, Fire, and Rescue organizations), and a wide variety of specialized Geographic Information System (GIS) applications, all of which are well known to people skilled in the art.
Real-time communication software applications are also being used today in various applications, like Instant Messaging (IM) applications such as American Online's (AOL) IM (AIM), Yahoo's IM, and Microsoft's IM, all of which are well known to people skilled in the art. None of these prior art IM software applications contain mapping capabilities. These applications provide presence information about other users on a user's roster or buddy list, such as online, busy, away, on the phone, offline, etc., and are primarily used for non-commercial applications, such as for conversing with friends or buddies that are online.
Prior art applications provide various features, such as displaying driving directions (i.e., routes), Points Of Interest (POI), waypoints (such as personalized, user-specific, points on a route or along a track), etc., but do not enable the transfer of such information to other users in real-time. A user will typically copy an image of a map from a standard mapping program, usually with a highlighted route, and e-mail the bitmap image and/or directions to another user or group of users for the purpose of meeting at a specific location or POI, such as a restaurant. Alternatively, with the adoption of IM programs, users can transfer these images and directions, typically by using an integrated file transfer program (FTP) connection, in real-time to other users based on their presence, and obtain real-time feedback from their buddies about the destination POI or location and specific route used to get to the destination.
Current applications that integrate both mapping and real-time messaging are well known in the art, such as the Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) or Fleet Tracking industry, where vehicles that have position devices, such as GPS, report their position to a centralized computer for the mapping and display of the vehicles' locations. Some of these prior art systems may incorporate real-time messaging for the transfer of logistical information, such as pickup and drop-off status messages. However, these existing applications do not provide a method for dynamically and graphically transferring location-relevant information coupled with a spatial map. Additionally, these applications typically provide only one-way transfer of position information, from the mobile vehicle to the dispatcher application, either on a web-based or desktop-based program. Usually, there is no need to transfer the dispatcher's location to the mobile vehicle since the dispatcher's location is always stationary. Mobile devices typically use location telemetry devices to transmit their location in a pre-defined manner or by request, where the dispatcher's location request is usually initiated by clicking on a Graphical User Interface (GUI) or by using a set of preferences to automatically request position updates. These preferences are based on various parameters, such as reporting location updates based on the distance traveled by the vehicle or by using various time intervals to trigger position updates either by a push or pull method relative to the telemetry device.
Another problem with existing AVL software solutions are that most applications are web-based applications that only allow for static image-based mapping, such as those provided by various online mapping companies like MapQuest. Also, the mapping and communication systems are disjointed from each other, as is the case with various companies, such as Televoke, Inc. These static image-based mapping applications do not enable real-time graphical manipulation of POIs on the map, nor do they provide a graphical connection between the map and vehicle roster listing. Some AVL software solutions provide the ability to display moving vehicles on dynamically viewable maps. However, these solutions do not enable the user to select a vehicle on the map, nor a stationary representation of a vehicle in a roster list, in real-time for the purpose of sending the vehicle's location to other users, and thus do not allow the creation of ad-hoc position transfers between various parties. Some dynamic mapping applications, such as Microsoft's MapPoint application, allow users to select Points Of Interest (POI) generally for the purpose of providing additional information about the POI or enabling the user to add the POI to a route planner as a route start, end, or stop point. This POI is selected by ‘right-clicking’ on the object after it has been selected and then choosing the specific route option. However, prior art fails to provide real-time communication capability with location-relevant information (i.e., POIs) for the purpose of graphically sending location-relevant information in established or ad-hoc networks to other users or location-enabled devices.
Another problem with prior art, such as in the case of AVL software solutions, is that vehicles or other mobile devices that a user wishes to map must first be selected from a list of available position-enabled vehicles. These vehicles, however, must already be configured for mapping on a dispatcher's mapping application and do not enable position requests in an ad-hoc environment. Prior art AVL mapping and tracking systems, such as At Road Inc., only allow users to select from a list of pre-configured location-updating vehicles, and then require the user to press a button in order to map the location of the selected vehicle(s). A much better solution, as people skilled in the art will appreciate, is to select a user, device, or group of users and devices in a roster list and graphically drag-and-drop the selection onto an active map. This method significantly simplifies the process of identifying a single or group of user(s)/device(s) and mapping their location appropriately. Additionally, prior art AVL systems do not allow for the case of users or devices to disallow their position from being mapped on the current mapping application.
There also exists a need for the consideration of permissions in such a case of privacy concerns, where a real-time location request be sent across the real-time communication connection to the user, vehicle, or device, whose location information is being requested. The user, vehicle, or device can select the resolution of position information they want to communicate (i.e., latitude and longitude, or city, or state, or etc.) to control the level of accuracy to which they can be mapped. Once approved, this ad-hoc transfer of position information occurs and the graphical mapping of the received position information is completed on the requestor's mapping application. Thus, allowing users to initiate position requests graphically and in real-time, and providing the capability of ad-hoc position requests to other users not pre-configured to allow their location information to be mapped, provides an extremely efficient method and system when compared to prior art systems.
Another drawback of prior art is that integrated mapping and communication programs, such as AVL applications, provide the ability for the receiving of position information for mapping purposes only. These prior art systems do not provide the capability of sending, or pushing, location-relevant information, such as POIs, to other mapping programs or textual devices, such as Personal Digital Assistants (PDA), pagers, cell phones, etc. For instance, prior art mapping systems, such as Microsoft's MapPoint, allow the user to select POIs, such as restaurants and gas stations, but does not allow the user to transfer these POIs to other users, and more specifically does not allow users to graphically drag-and-drop these selections (i.e., POIs) for various purposes, such as to dynamically add them to a route planner for inclusion in an undefined route or pre-calculated route.
The integration of a highly dynamic mapping application and a real-time communication system enables users to select POIs, such as houses, theaters, city names, roads, etc., or icon representations of other users on a mapping program for the purpose of graphically sending location-relevant graphical information, such as the selected POIs, to a specific user on a roster listing of available online users in real-time. As people skilled in the art will appreciate, graphical location-relevant information is not limited to only POIs, but also includes mapped routes, waypoints, geo-fenced areas, planes, etc. A valuable feature that prior art fails to provide is the transfer mechanism that allows the ability to drag-and-drop this location-relevant map information (i.e., routes, geo-fenced areas, etc.) to the current application's roster list for such transfers.
Prior art systems, such as AVL software, also fail to provide the capability of allowing the map application user (i.e., in the case of an AVL software solution the user is typically denoted as the dispatcher) to send the position information of one vehicle to another vehicle on the user's roster list for an ad-hoc location transfer. This method of transferring information is best performed by dragging the icon representation of one vehicle to the icon representation of another vehicle in the user's roster list. Before the completion of the transfer of one vehicle's location information to another vehicle, where the user or dispatcher acts as the location-transfer hub, each user sets the appropriate permissions to allow the transfer. Thus, each of the vehicles' roster lists do not need to be included in the other vehicle's roster list, since the user or dispatcher has both vehicles on its roster list and acts as the hub for the transfer of the position information. This creates a dynamic environment for ad-hoc position transfers that are not available in prior art systems.
As an additional drawback of prior art systems, there is no way to provide real-time route planning of a system consisting of a real-time communication system integrated with a mapping and real-time communication program. In other words, it is not currently possible for a roster icon representation of a vehicle or user to be graphically selected into, or dragged-and-dropped onto, a route planner for the purpose of setting a user's current position as a route's destination points, where the term ‘destination’ refers to a point or location on a map that the user indicates as a start of a trip, end of a trip, or stop or waypoint along a trip. Origin also is used to refer to the start of a trip. This route planning operation also applies to POI locations. For instance, prior art systems, such as Microsoft's MapPoint allows users to graphically alter a pre-calculated route, such as graphically indicating the portion of the route to alter.
However, current art systems do not allow the capability of selecting real-time location-enabled or static POIs (such as vehicles, restaurants, people, gas stations, houses, etc.) for the purpose of graphically adding to, or updating, a route's destination points in an undefined or pre-calculated route. Additionally, this prior art system application only allows the alteration of a route to a new destination by dragging the selected portion of the route to that new location. A more useful method, which can incorporate the integrated real-time communication system, is by allowing the user to drag a graphical representation of a location-relevant object, such as POI (i.e., restaurant, gas station, house, user, etc.), to the pre-calculated route itself or to a route planner, thus graphically altering the pre-calculated route by creating a destination point based on the dragged POI's location information. If the POI has a static location, and its position information is already known, then the real-time communication system is not utilized. However, if the POI is dynamic (i.e., a moving vehicle), then the real-time communication system is utilized to obtain the position information of the selected dynamic POI in real-time, thus producing a dynamically moving route, where the destination point can change its position in real-time, thus causing the route to continually update it parameters based on the moving object. Another advantage for using the dynamic route calculation, is as the POI moves its location, the entire route need not be re-calculated in real-time, but only that portion of the route that needs to be re-calculated.
An additional problem with current map planning applications or integrated mapping and real-time communication software applications, such as AVL software solutions, is that they do not provide the capability of allowing users to graphically transfer routes to other users in real-time. Current prior art systems that are capable of generating routes allow users to send route representations, such as bitmap images or driving directions, to other users either by e-mail or FTP connection, where these routes representations only provide a static set of information, such as the starting and ending (i.e., destination) points of the predefined route. The route is usually generated based on the sender's origin and destination, or is based on generic major roadways that are easily identifiable in the immediate area.
A more useful implementation, when compared to prior art systems, would enable users to transfer or ‘share’ pre-defined routes, including all of the destination and turn points of the route and all of the metrics used to calculate the route, in real-time, so that they can be incorporated into the recipient user's routes or dynamically viewed on the recipient user's map. In the case of an in-vehicle navigational system, transferring a vehicle's actual route to another vehicle or graphical application allows the other user to view in real-time the exact location of that vehicle relative to the route that vehicle is traveling along. An additional benefit of this more useful application would be that the recipient of the route would be able to use in their route planner tool the sent destination points (i.e., stop points, end point, etc.), and use their own current location as the route's origin. For example, prior art systems, such as MapQuest or MapBlast, allow users to send image representations of static routes to other users. However, these routes are relative to the sender's location. There needs to be a method to create a route that can automatically include the received route's destination points while recalculating the route relative to the recipient's current position.
Thus, a need exits for a method and system that allows users to graphically send, request, and plan, in real-time, location-relevant information between users and devices. Until now, an adequate solution to those problems has eluded those skilled in the art. Providing a solution enabling users to graphically send, request, and plan, in real-time, location-relevant information between users and devices would prove especially useful for wireless devices that incorporate positioning technologies, such as Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) devices. This provides great benefits to wireless in-vehicle navigational systems (i.e., telematics) and fleet tracking systems, since they would be able to make more efficient use of position information by including a real-time communication infrastructure and application with a graphically enabled interface.